New City – January
2002
In light of the current mix of fear and fascination
toward the Muslim world, which has led to rash over-generalization,
it is refreshing to look at Victoria Vorreiter’s
straightforward color photographs and informative text
recording the pre-modern cultural traditions that survive
Morocco today. A skilled and sensitive documentarian,
Vorreiter (who is also a musicologist) shows us healing
practices, religious rituals, tea ceremonies and, most
of all, the panoply of various musicians and dancers
whose performances are essential and specific to each
cultural event. Vorreiter teaches us that the Muslim
world is endlessly variegated; Morocco alone is intricately
multicultural, tingeing Islam with local, regional and
tribal customs. In a particularly elegant image, we
see a beautiful desert tribeswoman performing the Guedra,
a dance that uses syncopated finger gestures to mime
the precision of camels and their herders across the
Sahara desert. (Michael Weinstein) |